iPhone 5 Purple Flare Camera Problem: Users Stuck With it as Apple Claims That This is ‘Normal’

In what sounds suspiciously like the ‘antennagate’ scandal with the iPhone 4 and its signal dropouts, the unpleasant purple flare camera problem with the iPhone 5 when pointed at bright light sources such as the sun has been brushed aside by Apple. In fact, even when the light sources are nowhere near as bright, the problem is painfully obvious, ruining many pictures, as can be seen in the examples below.

Debby from AppleCare support has acknowledged this problem in the response shown below to a query from a customer called Matt Van Gastel, but claims that the user simply has to angle the phone away from bright light sources to avoid it. Seriously. I’m sure that Matt is simply thrilled with this response…

The problem seems to stem from the fact that despite the camera having the same resolution as on the iPhone 4S, it has had to be redesigned to fit into the slimmer form factor of the iPhone 5, which by the looks of it has seriously reduced its quality to the point of being unfit for purpose.

With a major design fault like this in a much-used, important function in a very expensive flagship product and Apple refusing to fix it, I would consider it a showstopper and wouldn’t buy the product. Would you?